Beginner Country Guitar Lessons - How to Instantly Play Killer Bass Runs on Guitar (It's Easy)

Many guitarist know about alternating bass but only a handful understand how to connect chords with bass runs, sure they may know a few runs that their guitar playing friends have shown them but they really don't know why or how these runs work.

It's time to stop all this smoke and mirrors stuff and finally unravel the mysteries of bass runs and the great news is it's easy once you understand the basic underlying musical principals all top guitar players use.

Review time:

Alternating bass consists of alternating between the first and fifth note of a chord e.g., if we were playing a "C" chord we would alternate between the note C (note 1 of the chord) and the note G (note 5 of the chord).

Here is a quick reference chart for you to check your alternating bass notes.

A, Am, Am7, A7, A9 = strings 5 and 6

B, Bm, Bm7, B7, B9 = 5 and 6

C, Cm, Cm7, C7, C9 = 5 and 6

D, Dm, Dm7, D7, D9 = 4 and 5

E, Em, Em7, E7, E9 = 6 and 5

F, Fm, Fm7, F7, F9 = 4 and 5 (5 string version)

F, Fm, Fm7, F7, F9 = 6 and 5 (bar chord version)

G, Gm, Gm7, G7, G9 = 6 and 4

Here is how that works in a bar of 4/4 time

bass (note 1) strum / bass (note 5) strum /

So a bar in 4/4 time would be written this way: //// but could played this way: bass / bass /

Once you have set up your alternating bass pattern you will want to try some bass runs, here is how you work out what notes to play.

The first step is to know the names of the notes of the scale/key you are playing in, here are a few in the most popular "guitar friendly" keys for you to study.

C = C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C

G = G - A - B - C - D - E - F# - G

D = D - E - F# - G - A - B - C# - D

A = A - B - C# - D - E - F# - G# - A

E = E - F# - G# - A - B - C# - D# - E

Let's say you were playing a song in the key of "D" and wanted to create a bass run to connect a "D" chord to an "A" chord.

Step 1: select the key

D = D - E - F# - G - A - B - C# - D

Step 2: identify your starting chord (D) indicated []

D - E - F# - G - A - B - C# - [D]

Step 3: locate your destination chord (A) indicated {}

D - E - F# - G - {A} - B - C# - [D]

Step 4: work out how many notes you will need... in this case we are playing in 4/4 time so we will require four notes in our bass run to complete the bar.

Step 5: check if you have enough notes by measuring the distance between your starting note and your destination note.

{A} - B - C# - [D]

In this instance we only have three notes, so the trick is to play the first note twice so our bass run would become

[D] - D - C# - B | {A} / b / | etc

On the guitar our new bass run would look like this:

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--0---0------------
----------4---2----
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Using this five step process you will be able to create strong, professional sounding bass runs on your guitar.